Being a pirate as you know is illegal and violates the international law, but being an official Israeli Navy pirate is something Israel brags about and defines it as enforcing its control over Palestinian or even international territorial waters.

Last week, Israeli pirates pirated the Spirit of Humanity ship while heading to Gaza carrying humanitarian supplies, and kidnapped those on board, including former US Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, and Nobel Prize winner, Mairead Maguire. 

The ship was 23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 21 human rights workers from 11 countries were kidnapped. 

The ship was not in Israeli territorial waters, and was on a humanitarian mission to bring some supplies to the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip.

Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated; "No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children's toys’.

She added that the boat was searched and received a security clearance by the Port Authorities in Cyprus.  

But it seems that pirating is OK, but keep in mind that we are not talking about the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or the ‘Somali Pirates’. 

This is the latest development in pirating, an era in which a state, officially recognized by the vast majority of the world, and heavily supported by the United States, pirates a humanitarian aid ship heading to Gaza in an attempt to bring some hope to the dying residents.

It seems OK to Israel and its allies to pirate a ship carrying 21 human rights activists from eleven countries. 

It does not seem odd to the supporters of the occupation that the ship, trying to bring a little bit of hope to Gaza, trying to ease the suffering to some patients, would be pirated and its activists would be treated like terrorists. 

Hundreds of patients, including children and infants, have died in Gaza as the hospitals cannot find spare parts for their machines, and cannot even find medications to at least ease the suffering of the patients.

The pirates are the ones who attack Palestinian fishing boats and humanitarian boats.

Israel knows that those ships pose no security threat, knows very well they carry humanitarian aid, carry well known and widely respected peace activists. 

The threat to Israel is that its crimes are being exposed to the international community, as the Israeli myth of self defense is trembling and about to fall.

That’s why a person like Professor Richard Falk is not welcomed in Israel, that’s why Israel refused to cooperate with the United Nations fact-finding committee which was assigned to investigate the latest war on Gaza, and insists that its own so-called investigation is the one and only. 

The Israeli investigation reached a conclusion stating that the army did not violate the International Law, and acted in according to the conducts of war ‘by trying to avoid civilian causalities’.   

Having this said, and looking at the fact that more than 1450 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed in three weeks, we have to wonder why hundreds of civilians were killed, and thousands were wounded. 

Why is it alright for Israel to deny the patients from their internationally guaranteed right to medical treatment, why do infants, women and men, have to die while their lives can be saved?

The good news is actually for the pirates, they should take some lessons from Israel on how to pirate without being questioned. 

Welcome to the new era of pirating, welcome to the Israeli policies that criminalize sending humanitarian aid, and legalize pirating.

It is not about Hamas, has nothing to do with the ‘homemade shells’, and absolutely has nothing to do with Israel’s security.

It is collective punishment against more than 1.5 million Palestinian living in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip. It is a policy that tries to force the residents to kneel before Israel and beg for mercy, but the steadfastness of the residents, not only living under siege, but also living under shelling and ongoing violations, is one of the main issues that puzzled Israel.

Reuters reported that a Dolphin Israeli submarine crossed the Egyptian Suez Peninsula last month during a Navy drill. 

The maneuver was seen as a message to Iran. The move comes several years after Israel refrained from sending its submarines through the Peninsula fearing that Egypt would be able to detect them.

The Jerusalem Post reported that a senior Israeli military official said that this is the first time that a submarine crosses the Suez since an Israeli decision was made in this regard in 2005. 

The Post said that the submarine crossed the Suez while floating on the surface, and did not even attempt to be discrete.

An Israeli official told Reuters that this maneuver showed Iran that Israel is capable of reaching the Arab Gulf, referred to by Israel as the Farsi Gulf, and that it can also reach the Indian Ocean easier than ever.

The official added that the Dolphin submarine can fire missiles, including nuclear warheads.

A trip to the Gulf without crossing the Suez would mean that Israeli submarines, fueled by diesel and mainly stationed in the Mediterranean, would need a several weeks trip.

Israeli sources reported that senior officials of Bahrain arrived in Israel to take five Bahraini nationals back to the country after they were detained by the Israeli Navy following its attack against the Free Gaza Movement ship.

The visit itself is the first of its kind, but Israel said that it does not hold any diplomatic significance. 

The sources added that the Bahraini officials arrived in Israel on Friday to collect he five Bahraini national as Israel was deporting them.

 The delegation was officially dispatched by the Bahraini Foreign Ministry. Israeli Interior Ministry said that although this is the first time Bahrainis visit the country, the sole propose of the visit was to take the detained Bahraini citizens back home.

The Israeli Navy pirated the Free Gaza Movement ship last Wednesday despite the fact that it did not enter Israeli territorial water, and kidnapped the activists onboard.

21 activists were onboard the ship ‘Spirit of Humanity’, including former US Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, and Nobel Prize winner, Mairead Maguire.

The ship was loaded with medical and humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

The Israeli National Water Company has cut off the water supply to two Arab Druze towns inside Israel.  While water cut-offs by Israeli authorities are common within the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank, they are fairly unheard of within Israel itself.

While the National Water Company, Mekorot, blamed the municipal authorities in the towns of Daliyat al-Karmel and Usafiya for collecting the fees and then keeping them instead of passing them on to the water company, the municipal authorities say the Ministry of Interior is to blame.

 

For the last five years, the towns have been under the control of a federally-appointed comptroller who was supposed to arrange a payment plan for the towns to pay off past debt to the water company.  First, the two municipalities were combined under a single entity called Carmel City, and ‘Carmel City’ signed an 18-month payment plan that would have ended in May 2009. 

But after six months, the entity ‘Carmel City’ was dissolved, and the two municipalities returned to having separate governing authorities.  But apparently the federally-appointed comptroller did not take responsibility for following up on the 18-month payment plan made with the no-longer-existent Carmel City, and the plan expired with millions of shekels unpaid.

The water company makes no provision for the weather in their decisions to cut off water in non-payment cases.  Instead, they happened to choose a day (July 1st) that is in the middle of a heat wave, and is in fact the hottest day so far this year.

Ordinary citizens who pay their water fees each month are outraged that the two municipalities have been completely cut off.  Kamal Adwan, a resident of one of the towns, told Israeli daily Yediot Ahranoth, "It's not easy to get by without water in this heat. A few have water reservoirs or wells near their houses, others just have to buy bottled mineral water."  Another resident, Samah Kayouif, told the Israeli daily that the residents had received no notice of an impending water cutoff, saying, "We woke up in the morning to find there was no water in the pipes. How do you shower? Shave? Go to the bathroom? Never mind just getting a drink. It's impossible to live like this, I had to go to work, but my wife took the kids and drove to her parents' because they have a rainwater reservoir."

Mekorot water company issued a statement saying that they "deeply regret" the suffering of ordinary citizens, but told those citizens to complain to their municipality.

Israel sources reported Friday that Israel said it would pay compensation to the United Nations for shelling its property, including schools and warehouses, in the Gaza Strip during the war on Gaza six months ago. 

The UN stated that its inquiry showed that the army shelled UN facilities seven times during the war; one of the shelled facilities was a UNRWA school in Jabalia. 

UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Karen Abu Zaid, stated that the UN is currently putting clearly the value of the loss. 

 It is worth mentioning that UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon, stated that he is seeking a compensation that exceeds $11 million. 

 On Thursday, AMNESTY International published a report accusing Israel of killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians and of destroying thousands of homes in the Gaza Strip during the offensive. 

AMNESTY said that this constitutes a war crime, and called on Israel to make a clear pledge that it will not use artillery, white phosphorus shells, and other types of imprecise weapons against populated areas. 

AMNESTY also said that the firing of homemade shells from Gaza into adjacent Israeli areas  also constitutes a war crime. 

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), based in Gaza, reported that 1415 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during the war. About 6000 were wounded. Most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children. Dozens of residents died of their wounds later on.